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CLOISTER AND OTHER POEMS 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

HEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY ■ CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



CLOISTER AND OTHER 
POEMS 



BY 
CHARLES L. O'DONNELL, C.S.C. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1922 

All rights reserved 



/O'O 






COPTBIOHT, 1922 

bt the macmillan company 



Set up and printed. Published October, 1922. 



Printed in the United States of America 



OCT 25 72 

© Cl A fi 8 fi a 7 n 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

For permission to reprint several of the poems 
in this book the author wishes to thank the editors 
of the Atlantic Monthly, the Ave Maria, the Book- 
man, the Catholic World, Harper s. Poetry: A 
Magazine of Verse, and the Sonnet. 



5] 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Cloister 11 

Launcelot's Song 12 

Return 13 

Forgiveness 14 

Transformation 15 

In Late Spring 16 

Harvest-Fields 17 

Immortality 18 

The Sign 19 

The Earth-Hour 20 

A Road of France 21 

The Poet's Bread 22 

Drought 23 

Restoration 24 

O Twilight Hour 25 

On Indian Lake 26 

A Road of Ireland 27 

The Porter 30 

Martin of Tours 31 

After Mass 32 

The Cross 33 

The Paten 34 

Myrrh 35 

A Rosary Moulded of Rose Leaves 36 

Advent 37 

[7] 



PAGE 

Prodigals 38 

.. Requital 39 

The Son of Man 40 

(, The Virgin Perfect 41 

Partus Virginis 42 

V Orbit 44 

Martha and Mary 45 

Beati Mortui 46 

Elevation 47 

Surrender 48 

The Julian Alps 49 

The Shamrock 50 

Magi 51 

Sunset 52 

The Watchers 53 

The Son of God 54 

"Scourged and Crowned" 55 

Raiment 56 

Bread and Wine 57 

At Emmaus 58 

Trelawney Lies by Shelley 59 

Said Alan Seeger unto Rupert Brooke 60 

The Mountain 61 

The Desert 62 

The Poet 63 

The Dead Musician 64 

Ballad of St. Christopher 68 

[8] 



CLOISTER AND OTHER POEMS 



CLOISTER 

"Show me your cloister," asks the Lady Pov- 
erty of the friars. And they, leading her to the 
summit of a hill, showed her the wide world, say- 
ing: "This is our cloister: O Lady Poverty!" 

Well, that were a cloister: for its bars 
Long strips of sunset, and its roof the stars. 

Four walls of sky, with corridors of air 
Leading to chapel, and God everywhere. 

Earth beauteous and bare to lie upon. 
Lit by the little candle of the sun. 

The wind gone daily sweeping like a broom — 
For these vast hearts it was a narrow room. 



11 



LAUNCELOT'S SONG 

When I remember you there falls 

A silence in my mind, 
As after gusty intervals 

Settles the spent wind, 
And a far voice in the stillness calls, 

Silver, and very kind. 

Then I give over matching words 

Against an old despair. 
And I know the sky would fill with birds, 

With song would fill the air, 
If you could see in broken sherds 

The life that was so fair. 

You did not shatter it, but I 

Broke it into my hands; 
Wherefore my sky is a silent sky 

And all lands twilight lands: 
Of pride that towered as heaven high 

There is not one wall stands. 



[12] 



RETURN 

The leaves beneath my feet shall blow 

Again upon their tree, 
Finding the way back that they know; 

And streams, gone to the sea — 
An upland harbor they shall reach 

However far they flow, 
Furl and unfurl upon that beach 

The white sails of the snow. 



[131 



FORGIVENESS 

Now God be thanked that roads are long and wide, 
And four far havens in the scattered sky: 
It would be hard to meet and pass you by. 

And God be praised there is an end of pride, 
And pity only has a word to say. 
While memory grows dim as time grows gray. 

For, God His word, I gave my best to you, 
All that I had, the finer and the sweet, 
To make — a path for your unquiet feet. 

Their track is on the life they trampled through; 
Such evil steps to leave such hallowing. 
Now God be with them in their wandering. 



14 



TRANSFORMATION 

I kept a beggar's hut till Love 
Knocked at my sullen door; 

I knew not what a spirit then 
Footed that earthen floor. 

No lights were in his tangled hair. 
His bare feet bled with cold, 

But all his frail hands chanced upon 
Flamed into sudden gold. 



[15] 



IN LATE SPRING 

Only to-day the maples start to wear 

That look of inward burgeoning, and I feel 

Colors I see not in the naked air, 

Lance-keen, and with the little blue of steel. 

No bud is forth nor green abroad and yet 

Air seems to wait with raiment for earth's 
flowers; 

Above these banks, haunt of the violet, 
Hover with purple scarfs the tiring hours. 



16 



HARVEST-FIELDS 

I walked to-day through a clover meadow, mown 

And sweet with dying bloom; 
Treading under my feet a glory fit to grace 

A king's way, or his tomb; 
Acres of loveliness laid low, and dying 
Of numberless lives, only the winds sighing. 

And I thought, as who does not, of other fields. 

Flowered with unnumbered dead. 
Wondering how those kings, the flower of grass, 

Hold up a regal head. 
Plan of closer cutting, redder harvest-making. 
All the world sighing and its heart breaking. 



[17] 



IMMORTALITY 

I shall go down as the sun goes 
Over the rim of the world — 

Will there be quiet around me, 
As of sunset banners furled? 

I shall take flight as a bird wings 

Into the infinite blue — 
What if my song come ringing 
Down through the stars and the dew? 

I shall mount, strong as the promise 
Forged in love's white, first fire — 

A soul through the exquisite darkness 
On pinions of desire. 



[18] 



THE SIGN 

Blossom by blossom the spring begins. 

— Swinburne. 

Not leaf by leaf the altered woodlands lose 
The summer's glory, lingering overlong, 

But bird by bii-d whose flight the wood-way strews 
With silence, fallen foliage of song. 

And spring begins not thus, O singing mouth. 
Blossom by blossom, the trees yet being dumb — 

But rather say, when wings flash from the south 
Carol by carol the spring is come. 



19 



THE EARTH-HOUR 

The earth was made in twilight, and the hour 
Of blending dusk and dew is still her own, 
Soft as it comes with promise and with power 
Of folded heavens, lately sunset-blown. 

Then we who know the bitter breath of earth, 
Who hold her every rapture for a pain. 
Yet leave the travail of celestial birth 
To wipe our tears upon the dusk again. 

But vain; the spirit takes, in sovereign mood, 
A sure revenge, as in some tree apart 
A whippoorwill sets trembling all the wood, — 
The silence mends more quickly than the heart. 



[20] 



A ROAD OF FRANCE 

All day the carts go by along the road 

That bear a regal though a sorry load. 

Young pine trees, stripped of all except their crown 

Wliich in the trodden dust is trailing down. 

Young kings, that knew the mountains and the 

stars, 
Dragged captive at the chariot wheels of Mars. 
Alas, I think, while gazing upon these — 
If this were but a sacrifice of trees! 



21] 



THE POET'S BREAD 

Morn oflFers him her flasked Hght 
That he may slake his thirst of soul, 

And for his hungry heart will Night 
Her wonder-cloth of stars outroll. 

However fortune goes or comes 
He has his daily certain bread, 

Taking the heaven's starry crumbs. 
And with a crust of sunset fed. 



22] 



DROUGHT 

There is no clover, and the frustrate bees, 
Abroad upon the fields and down the lane. 
Through all the forests of unflowered trees, 
Monotonously murmuring, complain. 
Murmuring monotonous, with wilding wings 
That bear no blossomy burden nightly home — 
For all their laboring, but idle things. 
But builders of a barren honeycomb. 
Thus it is now the summer of my dreams 
When falls no drop of rain or quickening dew; 
There are but sands where late were singing 

streams. 
And dusty bareness where the sweet thyme grew: 
The bees of all my thoughts are idle long, 
There is no honey in the hive of song. 



23] 



RESTORATION 

From these dead leaves the winds deride 

And on the brown earth fling, 
Yea, from their dust, new hosts shall rise 

At the trumpet call of Spring. 

Thus may the winds our ashes take, 

But in that far dusk dim. 
When God's eye hath burnt up the worlds, 

This flesh shall stand with Him. 



[24; 



O TWILIGHT HOUR! 

O twilight hour, you come and take my heart, 
With all your folded wings and colors flown 
From all your folded flowers, silver grown — 

O twilight hour, you come and take my heart. 

Your feet have trod what alien, far ways, 
On all the battlefields of time you came. 
In many a bower you fell upon love's flame, 

Your feet have trod what wonderful sad ways. 

Egypt has met you, and the crest of Rome 
Has bowed you homage with a vassal smile. 
And shadowy kingdoms of the dreaming Nile; 

Egypt has kissed you, Greece and faded Rome. 

What prayers have fallen on your silver ear, 
Since first you came, and all your stars were 

young; 
Bells have bespoke you, weeping queens have 
sung; 
The vespers of the world is in your ear. 

Contented eyes have closed in your embrace, 
Your seamless peace has covered wild alarms : 
Nurse of deep sleep, the gray zone of your arms 

Shall fold the waiting worlds in last embrace. 

[25] 



O twilight hour, you come and take my heart 
And shake my soul with silent presagings; 
I walk a lonely road, and no wind sings. 

But come, O twilight hour, and take my heart. 



[26] 



ON INDIAN LAKE 

Apple trees on a low hill 
And the dead sun behind; 

The water red and still; 
No sound, no wind. 

Sudden the booming flight 

Of coots upstirred; 
Overhead, in the early night, 

The moon, white bird. 



[27] 



A ROAD OF IRELAND 

From Killybegs to Ardara is seven Irish miles, 
'Tis there the blackbirds whistle and the mating 
cuckoos call, 
Beyond the fields the green sea glints, above the 
heaven smiles 
On all the white boreens that thread the glens 
of Donegal. 

Along the roads what feet have passed, could 
they but tell the story. 
Of ancient king and saint and bard, the roads 
have known them all; 
Lough Dergh, Doon Well, Glen Columcille, the 
names are yet a glory, 
'Tis great ghosts in the gloaming remember 
Donegal. 

The harbor slips of Killybegs glistened with 
Spanish sail 
The days Spain ventured round the world and 
held the half in thrall 
And Ardara has writ her name in the proud books 
of the Gael, 
Though sleep has fallen on them now in dream- 
lit Donegal. 

[28] 



Well, time will have its fling with dust, it is the 
changeless law. 
But this I like to think of whatever may befall: 
When she came up from Killybegs and he from 
Ardara 
My father met my mother on the road, in Don- 
egal. 



129] 



THE PORTER 

I am the porter of a little door, 

A swinging wicket in the walls of sky. 

I open and I close a light-latched door. 

There was an ark whose sides were precious wood 

And gold archangels guarded its pale store 

Of wind-blown manna from the desert days. 

There was a bush which stood a flame of flowers 

And its approach was barefoot sanctity, 

Nor Moses dared its red apocalypse. 

There was an angel rolled a stone away 

And Roman guards swooned in their futile steel 

Before a tomb that April filled with morn 

When Peter, John, and Magdalen drew nigh 

And Peter entered, almost overbold. 

There was a womb that bowered Sharon's Rose 

And One alone that garden ever knew. 

Whose only gate none touched, not even God 

Who trod that close, God walking there alone. •' 

But I am porter of a little door 

No higher than a man's reach in the sky. 

Peter he keeps the ponderous gates of heaven. 

And right good toll he takes at that turnstile. 

I let you in for nothing but for love 

At the little door in the little house of God. 

[30] 



MARTIN OF TOURS 

"As I to-day was wayfaring" — 

Holy, Holy, Holy! — low — 
Said Christ in heaven's evening — 

The Holies yet more hushed and slow — 
"I met a knight upon the road; 
A plumed charger he bestrode. 

"He saw the beggar that was I — 

Holy, Holy, Holy! — long — 
Head and foot one beggary — 

Holy, Holy, Holy! — song — 
One that shivered in the cold 
While his horse trailed cloth of gold. 

"Down he leaped, his sword outdrawn — 

Holy, Holy, Holy! — swells — 
Cleaved his cloak, laid half upon — 

Holy! now a peal of hells — 
Shoulders that the cross had spanned; 
And I think he kissed My hand. 

"Then he passed the road along, 

Holy, Holy, Holy! — laud — 
Caroling a knightly song — 

Holy! in the face of God! 
Yea, Father, by Thy sovereign name. 
Begging is a goodly game." 

[31] 



AFTER MASS 

I kiss my amice, and fold it close. 

Remembering what Saint John 

Arriving at the sepulchre 

Wrote that he looked upon: 

The napkin wrapped about Christ's head 

Folded and laid apart: — 

He saw this thing and wrote of it 

Who lay upon God's heart. 



[32] 



THE CROSS 

When Christ went up the April roads 

The winds of April wept. 
But through the woodway's early buds 

Triumphant murmur swept: 
"On every height while time shall be 

Shall shine the glory of a Tree." 



[33] 



THE PATEN 

A little golden cradle 

It waits for Mary's Son, 

Until my words give birth to Him, 

Each day's Expected One. 

A radiant cross where broken 
The unbloody Mystery lies — 
Love, be our soul's horizon. 
Faith, seal our useless eyes! 



34 



MYRRH 

In Bedlem, of Jewry, 

The Gentles brought Thee myrrh : 
In the breast of Mother Mary 

Was somewhat ailed her. 

Frankincense for Priesthood, 

Gold for a King's head; 
But what is this for Lambkin, 

The myrrh of the dead? 

It was all in Bedlem 

They brought Him burial myrrh; 
Be easy, Mother Mary — 

There shall come another: 

She that of Magdala's street 

Shall carry her name, 
Yet of Thy Son's feet 

Shall bear her lovely fame — 

Wise Men came to Jewry, 
And wise gifts brought they; 

But a woman in a garden 
Shall throw her myrrh away. 



35 



A ROSARY MOULDED OF ROSE LEAVES 

Could anything more lovely be 
Than is a rose-leaf rosary — 

Wherein a garden bows its head, 

And folds its hands and prays, though dead? 

A cloister close, where roses wear — 
The world forsook — the veil of prayer. 

Out of the grave of summer rise 
These postulants of Paradise. 

Roses that morning robed with white 
Go softly here in stoles of light. 

Roses the heart of June has bled, 
With deeper Passion here are red. 

In raptures glorious enfolden, 

The golden rose is yet more golden. 

The shrouding mysteries they wear 
But show their loveliness more fair. 

Could anything so proper be 
As is a rose-leaf rosary? — 

Roses that worshiped God an hour, 
Turned into prayers that are a flower. 

[36] 



ADVENT 

Hush ! Dost hear a calHng, Juda, 

Like an infant's cry? 
Juda, selHng doves in market, 

Only hears the winds go by. 

Hark ! Dost hear a footfall beating, 

Or is it stir of wings? 
Juda, busy tithing cummin. 

Does not hear these things. 

Lo, is yon a new light breaking, 
Now the dark grows deep? 

Juda, see, a star, a wonder — • 
Juda is asleep. 



[37 



PRODIGALS 

I saw this eve the wandering sun — 
Spent was his purse of gold — 

Sink at his father's door, fordone, 
As the day grew old. 

Then from within the western wall 
Such floods of glory spread — 

"They keep," I thought, "high carnival 
For one they held as dead." 

And I thought of how Love's Prodigal 
Came home on bloodless feet 

To His Father's house and festival 
And the right-hand seat. 



38 



REQUITAL 

If lips with olden memories 

In heaven are sweet, 
Mine shall have burning ecstasies 

That kissed His feet. 

If lips grown gray with pain, 

In heaven are red, 
Then mine shall bloom again, 

Of life now bled. 

If souls earth-emptied here. 

In heaven are filled, 
O heart, then let thy fear 

Be stilled, be stilled. 



THE SON OF MAN 

He lit the lily's lamp of snow 

And fired the rose's sunset heart, 

He timed the light's long ebb and flow 
And drove the coursing winds apart. 

He gathered armfuls of the dew 

And shook it over earth again, 
He spread the heaven's cloth of blue 

And topped the fields with plenteous grain. 

He tuned the stars to minstrelsy 
As twilight soft, as bird song wild. 

Who learned beside His Mother's knee 
His prayers like any other child. 



[4o: 



THE VIRGIN PERFECT 

The lowly things were sweet to her, 

The clover and the dew; 
Creation all seemed meet to her, 

The scarlet rose, the rue. 

A simple, busy day was hers 

Within her garden dell; 
The common, even way was hers, 

But walked uncommon well. 

Not that she heard, but kept the word. 

In this her virtue lay; 
She slept at night when slept the Word, 

To slumber was to pray. 



41] 



PARTUS VIRGINIS 

Him whom, as mothers use, 

I bosomed full tide, 
I bore, Eling of the Jews, 

And God, beside. 

They speak of star and kings. 
Wondrous in Bethlehem, 

And angels with great wings — 
Men tell of them. 

Yet what should my thoughts do 
Since the March weather, 

And first God and I drew 
Breath together? 

What should I think upon, 

Day or night tide. 
Since Elizabeth's son 

Knew, in her side — 

But the coming of Another, 

On His shoeless feet, 
I, the budding earth, His Mother, 

And my breast spring-sweet? 

[42] 



Was it night or day breaking? 

Little I could spin, 
Who knew my veins making 

Robe He should die in. 

Nazareth, or David's town. 

It was equal to me; 
Straw, or eiderdown, 

Shepherds, royalty. 

There were only He and I, 

Within, without me. 
All the still sky 

Folded about me. 

He came, my Son, my Son — 

Stars, empires fall.'* 
I hold my breast upon 

My Babe, who is All! 



ORBIT 

Nothing so much is future as the past; 

I may not see to-morrow, 

But, unto joy or sorrow. 
My yesterdays shall meet me at the last. 



[44] 



MARTHA AND MARY 

When Light is dead, the busied Day 
Folds weary hands and ghdes away; 
While Night outspreads her starry hair 
Upon His grave, and worships there. 



[451 



BEATI MORTUI 

There was a dance of autumn leaves, of yellow 
leaves and red, 

A bright and merry maze they spun in the No- 
vember sky: 

I marveled at the young delight of these "about 
to die," 

When I remembered — did one passing whisper? — 
they were dead. 



{46] 



ELEVATION 

Throned in His Mother's arms, 
Christ rests in slumber sweet; 

Except at God's right hand, 
For Him no higher seat. 



[47; 



SURRENDER 

No longer on the western field contend 

The rearguard of the sun, while massed and gray 

The shadows like a silent rain descend 
Upon the smouldering ruins of the day. 



48 



THE JULIAN ALPS 

The mists draw off the valley, 
The mountain summits show — 

A dark-robed fraticelli 

They stand, with cowls of snow. 



[49] 



THE SHAMROCK 

Sprung from a vanished hour 
Of sun and shower, 

You bore a people's faith, 
A fadeless flower. 



[SOI 



MAGI 

Three clouds of sunset gather with their gold: 
What strange persuasion does the half-light 
bring ! 

Just now I thought they grew like camels, each 
With purple slung, and carrying a king. 



[61] 



SUNSET 

A Magdalen, the scarlet Day, 
Knocks at Eve's convent wall ; 

They clothe her, penitent, in gray, 
Golden her shorn locks fall. 



52 



THE WATCHERS 

"Sleep now, and take your rest," the sad words 

mark: 
But one holds commerce open-eyed with dark. 
Whose bartered kiss the Master's worn lips take, 
And Peter scarce awake. 



158] 



THE SON OF GOD 

The fount of Mary's joy 
Revealed now lies, 

For, lo, has not the Boy 
His Father's eyes? 



(64] 



SCOURGED AND CROWNED" 

A regal sequence see: 
Him whom His subjects loathed — 
Before He crowned should be — 
They first with Purple clothed. 



[55] 



RAIMENT 

The seamless cloak He wore 
They kept, nor broke a thread: 

His garb of flesh they tore 
As if from shred to shred. 



[56 



BREAD AND WINE 

Passionis Tucb Memoriam Reliquisti 

Herod's Fool and Pilate's King, 
Purple cloths and white we bring: 
Cloak Thee in the pale wheat, hide 
In clusters of the blue hillside. 



57] 



AT EMMAUS 

They knew Him when He broke the bread: 
Was it by the accompanying word He said 
Which faith, though faltering, understands? 
Or wounded beauty of His hands? 



[58] 



TRELAWNEY LIES BY SHELLEY 

Trelawney lies by Shelley, and one bed 
Of violets covers Keats and Severn, so 
The friends who went life's way together know 
No parting of the ways now they are dead. 
Young Shelley, like a spirit, spoke and fled. 
And Keats, before his youth began to blow; 
Trelawney counted eighty winters' snow, 
And eighty winters fell on Severn's head. 
Yet here they lie, like poppies at one stroke 
Cut by the seKsame blade in the summer sun, 
The poets, and the friends who heard their song, 
Beheved and waited till the morning broke, 
Then told their candle that the night was done; 
When Friendship in the daytide rested, strong. 

In the English Cemetery, Rome. 



[69] 



SAID ALAN SEEGER UNTO RUPERT 
BROOKE 

Said Alan Seeger unto Rupert Brooke — 

They walked by banks of timeless asphodel 

Along which Acheron's dim waters fell 

With soundless motion — "Wherever here we look, 

Brother, are faces that our glances took 

For old familiars of that world where dwell 

Those that we knew before we came, through hell, 

Unto this peace. Familiar as a book 

We conned in school is that Virgilian brow. 

And one moves toward him with Pindaric grace. 

See where they meet, twin shades, and that they 

bow 
Where blind eyes star an old man's wrinkled face." 
And Rupert Brooke to Alan Seeger said, 
"These are the immortals, we are but the dead." 



[60] 



THE MOUNTAIN 

We are bound in with vague fold upon fold 

Of mists that wrap our world. We have no skies. 

You can not measure here as the bird flies, 

There is no outlet where the fog has rolled 

Its greyness over us; till, as day grows old 

Stirrings of wind wake hope, before light dies, 

Of the low grey lifting; then, to raptured eyes, 

A mountain peak stands forth in the late sun's gold. 

Beyond the mists that shorten life's due vision — 

Shadows that mask and blur reality, 

Where frustrate sense treads hopeless in the 

maze — 
There are those fields that dreamers named 

Elysian, 
Eternity saints charted like a sea. 
And God, when time is done, the Ancient of Days. 



[61] 



THE DESERT 

There are no fallen leaves in the desert, this 

Is not that Vallombrosa of the brooks 

Sung by the poets in their numbered books, 

It is a hag-land, under the blasting kiss 

Of a pitiless lover. If ever there was bliss 

Of youth and grace here, moving in bowered 

nooks — 
Fled now like finches when coarse-clapping rooks 
Invade their neighborhood of maple trees. 
This was my sin-burned soul, this were my soul 
Only for earthquake of the sacraments 
Loosening great floods like torrents of the past 
That swept my barrenness from pole to pole. 
Till ruin breaks in blossomed penitence 
Spring after sweet spring lovelier than the last. 



62 



THE POET 

In the Office of the Blessed Virgin 

Who but Jerome should quarry speech Hke stone, 
Granite on granite phrase superbly laid 
Till like a tower master hands have made 
The whole stands upright to the stars, alone. 
Four-square and perfect. "Hail, God's Holy 

Throne, 
Ark, Mountain, Palace, Dove," as, unafraid 
Words of wide meaning he has justly weighed 
Into proportion, color, line, and tone. 
Jerome, in camel skins, in your dim cave, 
With only — Ah! — the Scriptures to your hand, 
Water and bitter herbs, hair-shirted rest — 
What darling singer of the ages gave 
Ever such beauty in a flower-crowned land 
As with a stone you beat out of your breast! 



[68] 



THE DEAD MUSICIAN 

In memory of Brother Basil, organist for half a 
century at Notre Dame. 

He was the player and the played upon, 
He was the actor and the acted on, 
Artist, and yet himself a substance wrought; 
God played on him as he upon the keys, 
Moving his soul to mightiest melodies 
Of lowly serving, hid austerities 
And holy thought that our high dream out-tops — 
He was an organ where God kept the stops. 

Naught, naught 
Of all he gave us came so wondrous clear 
As that he sounded to the Master's ear. 

Wedded he was to the immortal Three, 
Poverty, Obedience, and Chastity, 
And in a fourth he found them all expressed. 
For him all gathered were in Music's breast. 
And in God's house 

He took her for his spouse — 
High union that the world's eye never scans 

Nor world's way knows. 
Not any penny of applauding hands 

[64] 



He caught, nor would have caught; 
Not any thought 
Save to obey 
Obedience that bade him play, 

And for his bride 
To have none else beside. 
That both might keep unflecked their virgin 
snows. 

Yet by our God's great law 

Such marriage issue saw. 

As they who cast away may keep, 

Who sow not reap. 

In Chastity entombed 

His manhood bloomed, 

And children not of earth 

Had spotless birth. 
With might unmortal was he strong 

That he begot 

Of what was not, 
Within the barren womb of silence, song. 

A host of sons he had 
To make his sole heart glad — 
Romping the boundless meadows of the air. 
Skipping the cloudy hills, and climbing bold 
The heavens' nightly stairs of starry gold, 
Nay, winning heaven's door 

To mingle evermore 



With deathless troops of angel harmony. 
He filled the house of God 
With servants at his nod, 
A music-host of moving pageantry, 
Lo, this a priest, and that an acolyte: 
Ah, such we name aright 
Creative art. 
To body forth love slumbering in the heart. 
Fools, they who pity him, 
Imagine dim 
Days that the world's glare brightens not. 
Until the seraphim 
Shake from their flashing hair 
Lightnings, and weave serpents there, 
His days we reckon fair .... 

Yet more he had than this: 
Lord of the liberative kiss. 
To own, and yet refrain. 
To hold his hand in rein. 
High continence of his high power 
That turns from virtue's very flower, 
In loss of that elected pain 
A greater prize to gain. 
As one who long had put wine by 
Would now himself deny 
Water, and thirsting die. 
So, sometimes he was idle at the keys, 

[66] 



Pale fingers on the aged ivories; 

Then, like a prisoned bird, 
Music was seen, not heard, 
Then were his quivering hands most strong 
With blood of the repressed song — 
A fruitful barrenness. Oh, where, 

Out of angeHc air. 
This side the heavens' spheres 
Such sight to start and hinder tears. 
Who knows, perhaps while silence throbbed 
He heard the De Profundis sobbed 

By his own organ at his bier to-day — 
It is the saints' anticipative way, 
He knew both hand and ear were clay. 
That was one thought 
Never is music wrought. 
For silence only could that truth convey. 

Widowed of him, his organ now is still, 
His music-children fled, their echoing feet yet fill 
The blue, far reaches of the vaulted nave, 
The heart that sired them, pulseless in the grave. 
Only the song he made is hushed, his soul, 
Responsive to God's touch, in His control 
Elsewhere shall tune the termless ecstasy 
Of one who all his life kept here 
An alien ear. 
Homesick for harpings of eternity. 

[67] 



BALLAD OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER 

When from the eyes of the blind man 

The seals of darkness broke, 
He saw men walking, as trees, he said, 

That was the word he spoke: 
Well, of all God's men and trees, I think, 

Christopher walked, an oak. 

He towered like the forest giant 

Above a sheltered town. 
His hair such a weight of foliage 

As the summer has for crown. 
And from a height of heaven 

His eyes like stars looked down. 

Looked down, for he sought through all the lands 

The king who was kingliest; 
And he laughed as he passed the princelings by 

In his imperial quest — 
Only the greatest king of the world 

Should bend the oak's high crest. 

So, the mightiest king he found, and served, 
Till once, in a darkened place, 

[68] 



The master lord drew back in dread 

And shook with pale disgrace — 
When the giant cried, "What ho! my liege. 

The blood has quit thy face." 

"There is a king," said the faltering prince, 

"Who is supreme monarch, 
Dominion of the night he holds 

And power no boundaries mark." 
Quoth the giant then, "At least this king 

Is not afraid of the dark." 

"Farewell," he mocked as he turned and walked 

With proud majestic frame 
Away from the stricken earthly king 

And his accomplished shame, 
To seek the lord of might abhorred. 

The king of the blackened name. 

And deep in the wood where the winter stood 
And the great trees groaned and tossed, 

The man was met by the Evil Prince, 
The lord of all the lost. 

And joined his might with Hell that night, 
Till they came to roads that crossed. 

And there where counter highways 
Were met upon the ground, 

[69] 



The Prince of Hell down groveling fell, 

The fearless in a swound; 
And a wayside cross by the morning roads 

The oath of the night unbound. 

The giant turned once more away 

From kings of high degree, 
And laughed in his beard, "The thing he feared 

Was a feeble thing," said he; 
"Since time began is many a man 

Has hanged upon a tree." 

"But this," and a voice behind him spoke, 

A hermit out of the wood, 
"He was not only man but God, 

Who saved us by His Blood, 
The King of all the kings of the world. 

And died upon the Rood." 

"Where is His court," the giant cried, 
And his voice boomed like a drum. 

"By yon stream side do thou abide 
And tarry till He come." 

"How shall I know this Mightiest One?" 
But the holy man was dumb. 

So the giant stopped at the river side 
Where wayfarers went by, 

[70] 



A bridgeless gap that travelers crossed 

Through waters plunging high, 
And back and forth through the stream he went 

As the boats of the ferry ply. 

And page or knight, or queen or wight. 

He bore them through the tide; 
He dwelt in the homeless forest 

By the swift river's side. 
And safe on his towering shoulders 

The kings of the earth might ride. 

But unforgot was his quest of the king 

His service should employ, 
And though he served his fellowmen 

And had therein a joy, 
The kingliest king he waited for, 

And one day came — a boy. 

A boy, there was upon his brow 

No sign of royal birth, 
You would not dream he was a king, 

His garb was nothing worth. 
You would not think to see his hands 

That they had made the earth. 

The giant swung aloft the child 
As light as thistle down; 

[71] 



He did not know the one he bore 

Had all the stars for crown, 
And he said in jest to his little guest, 

"Fear not, thou wilt not drown." 

The child looked down, and his eyes were gray 

As skies that have been blue: 
The giant strode with easy strength. 

But soon with laboring thew 
As heavier, heavier at each step 

The weight on his shoulder grew. 

And before they reached the middle stream 

Where the deep water swirled. 
The oak was bent, and his great crest bowed, 

And the leaves of his pride were furled; 
And the ancient tale was come to pass 

That a giant bore the world. 

And the man cried out as a forest groans 
When the winter winds are wild: 

"The weight of the world is on me now. 
Who art thou, awful child?" 

As the giant swayed, fordone, dismayed. 
It was the boy who smiled. 

Such silence fell by wood and stream 
When now the young child spoke 

[72] 



As kept the ancient skies before 

The morning stars awoke, 
Such stillness as in paradise 

The first lark broke: 

"0 you who seek the kingliest king, 

Or ever time begun 
I sat by the side of Him and saw 

The tideless waters run. 
And on a day, as a child might play. 

The world like a top I spun. 

"O you who look for the lord of all, 

Behold your searching done, 
For all the kings are feeble things 

Before the Eternal One; 
In earth or sea is none like Me 

Who am God's only Son. 

"O know you then, most strong of men, 

The tree is in the bud : 
Or ever you stood by the river side 

To bear men through the flood, 
I carried the world on My shoulders, 

Walking bloodless through My Blood. 

"And when the woods are blown to buds 
In the last of all the springs, 

[731 



When gone at length is the oak tree's strength 

And folded all the wings, 
Above the tide shall I abide, 

The King of all the kings." 

This was the word the giant heard 

Out of the shaken air, 
And once again a light touch stirred 

The tangles of his hair; 
But when he reached the farther side 

Alone he found him there. 

And the man grew old by the forest stream, 

Ever, as at the start. 
Ready by day or night to thrust 

The plunging waves apart, 
And whatever guest on his shoulders pressed. 

He bore Christ in his heart. 

There is a garden in a plot 

Where all the bird songs woke. 
And it is >»"^lled with emerald 

As one hath seen and spoke; 
And there beside the Tree of Life, 

Stands Christopher, the oak. 



[741 




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